BIG Questions Institute Bi-Weekly Update

April 24, 02024, No. 171 (Read online)

When the Conversations Get Serious

Hey,

The complexities and the uncertainties of this moment we're living in are creating a real urgency to engage in hard conversations about our lives today and what the future might hold. To not "go there" and acknowledge that our lives on the planet are fundamentally different from what they were 20 or even five years ago is to deny the "depth and magnitude of the problems we face together," as Vanessa Machado de Oliveira says in her important book Hospicing Modernity.

Much of our work right now starts by drawing educators, parents, and students into these types of discussions in order to orient ourselves to the current realities, and also to ensure that those discussions and the decisions that come out of them are as relevant as can be for their children and the communities moving forward.

But before we begin these types of serious conversations, we've come to understand the importance of developing some norms for how we enter and operate within this work. We'll ask the group what "agreements" they will make as we go through the journey, but we also make sure that the ones that follow below are a part of where we end up. These are not just agreements about how we will function; they are also a commitment to certain dispositions that are required for the work to thrive.

There are some great norms or agreements out there, like Norms of Collaboration from Adaptive Schools, Norms for Courageous Conversations (about race), and the Courage and Renewal Touchstones from Parker Palmer’s Center for Courage and Renewal.

Learning from the wisdom of these teachers and many others, we have compiled, modified, and expanded on what have become the norms that we've found useful when we begin really challenging conversations:

A willingness to get out of our comfort zones - we understand that discomfort is a sign that we have achieved the depth we need.
A willingness to acknowledge hard truths embedded in what we know about teaching, learning, and school - we know that to move forward, we have to fully interrogate who and what we are right now.
An acceptance and expectation of non-closure. (“Living with liminal”) - we understand that we are in a "time between worlds" and that concrete answers are hard to come by.
An openness to “new truths” - we know that we don't know.
A willingness to ask hard questions and encourage outlier ideas - we understand that deep and "fearless inquiry" can be a powerful guide.
We turn to wonder when the going gets tough - we know that frustration or anger are not productive.
We engage honestly, respectfully, and supportively - we see each other as fellow travellers on an important journey together.

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list. Nor does it guarantee that the work will produce the results we are hopeful for. But it does provide a solid starting point for groups that feel the urgency to engage with the hard realities of this moment to be better able to guide their children more effectively into the future.

Onward!

Will and Homa

Announcing: "Building and Becoming" 2.5-Day Retreat!

The BIG Questions Institute is thrilled to announce our first 2.5-day retreat for school leaders who want to engage the future in relevant and inspired ways!

Homa and I are collaborating with our friends Aaron Moniz (Inspire Citizens, Greg Curtis, and Nasim Fluker of Thirdspace Atlanta at one of our favorite schools, the Atlanta International School, to offer "Becoming and Building: Bold School Leadership for Complex Emerging Futures," a deep dive into the challenges, the opportunities, the whys, and the hows of leading education forward in these complex times.

We promise an active, participatory, collaborative experience that will push you to grow both personally and professionally. Bring a team (at a discount) for even more potential learning and building.

And, we'll also be curating meals and experiences that celebrate Atlanta's civil, arts, and human rights history. (That's right...we're gonna have some fun, too!)

Make new connections, and build coherence around and energy for the urgent work the future is demanding of us. Lead change. Leave changed.

Join us in Atlanta on July 25-27 for this unique opportunity! Seats are limited, and early bird pricing won't last forever!

What We're Reading

A few links to fuel your inquiry:

Struggling with a Moral Panic Once Again by danah boyd

"I wish there was a panacea to the mental health epidemic we are seeing. I wish I could believe that eliminating tech would make everything hunky dory. (I wish I could believe many things that are empirically not true. Like that there is no climate crisis.) Sadly, I know that what young people are facing is ecological. As a researcher, I know that young people’s relationship with tech is so much more complicated than pundits wish to suggest. I also know that the hardest part of being a parent is helping a child develop a range of social, emotional, and cognitive capacities so that they can be independent. And I know that excluding them from public life or telling them that they should be blocked from what adults values because their brains aren’t formed yet is a type of coddling that is outright destructive. And it backfires every time.

I’m also sick to my stomach listening to people talk about a “gender contagion” as if every aspect of how we present ourselves in this world isn’t socially constructed. (Never forget that pink was once the ultimate sign of masculinity.) Young people are trying to understand their place in this world. Of course they’re exploring. And I want my children to live in a world where exploration is celebrated rather than admonished. The mental health toll of forcing everyone to assimilate to binaries is brutal. I paid that price; I don’t want my kids to as well.”

Information Overload: How Overthinking Feeds Our Innate Superstitions by Amanda Montell

"In 2017, Scientific American declared that the nation’s mental health had declined since the 1990s and that suicide rates were at a thirty-year high. Four years later, a CDC survey found that 42 percent of young people felt so sad or hopeless in the last two weeks that they couldn’t go about their normal days. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reported that between 2020 and 2021, crisis calls to their lifeline were up 251 percent.

We’re living in what they call the “Information Age,” but life only seems to be making less sense. We’re isolated, listless, burnt out on screens, cutting loved ones out like tumors in the spirit of “boundaries,” failing to understand other people’s choices or even our own. The machine is malfunctioning, and we’re trying to think our way out of it. In 1961, Marxist philosopher Frantz Fanon wrote, “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it.” Our mission, it seems, has to do with the mind."

Why the world cannot afford the rich by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

"The underlying reasons for inequality having such profound and wide-ranging impacts are psychosocial. By accentuating differences in status and social class — for example, through the type of car someone drives, their clothing or where they live — inequality increases feelings of superiority and of inferiority. The view that some people are worth more than others can undermine people’s confidence and feelings of self-worth. And, as studies of cortisol responses show, worry about how others see us is a powerful stressor.

Rates of ‘status anxiety’ have been found to be increased in all income groups in more-unequal societies. Chronic stress has well-documented effects on mortality — it can double death rates. Health-related behaviours are also affected by stress. Diet, exercise and smoking all show social gradients, but people are least likely to adopt healthy lifestyles when they feel stressed."

Learn With BQI

New Two-Day Workshop! "Disrupting Sexism and Designing for Equality"

We're thrilled to welcome back Justine Finn for another powerful learning opportunity around "Disrupting Sexism and Designing for Equality: Frameworks and Strategies for Preventing, Responding and Resolving Harassment, Assault and Abuse in Schools" on May 1 and 4. How do we respond to the fact that in many communities worldwide, middle and high-school-aged youth experience the highest rates of rape, harassment, and assault? Get all the details and REGISTER HERE! Seats are limited!

Will We Be in Your Neighborhood?

Homa and Will would love to connect at any of the upcoming events they're speaking at:

May 2 - Lincoln School, Governance and Board Development, Buenos Aires, Argentina (Homa)

May 17 - Montana Office of Public Instruction, Great Falls, MT (Will)

May 21 - Gladwyne (Pa) Montessori School, Parent Education Lecture (Homa)

June 1 - Wake County Public Schools, Cary, NC, Global and Intercultural Professional Development (Homa)

June 20 - RET Retreat, Iowa State University, Ames, IA (Will)

June 25-27 - Leadership Seminar for Overseas Principals, Office of Overseas Schools, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC (Homa and Will)

July 25-27 - "Building and Becoming" 2.5-Day Retreat, Atlanta International School (Homa and Will) Info and Registration

August 21 - Chilliwack (BC) School District Leadership Retreat (Will)

August 22 - SD67 Leadership Retreat, Penticon, BC (Will)

September 3 - Nanuet (NY) School District Open Day (Will)

October 25-27 - Tri-Association Conference, Mexico City, MX (Homa and Will)

WORK WITH US!

Let BQI help you unlock the opportunities that are rapidly unfolding in education and the wider contexts. Everyone is talking about the challenges and the difficulties that are breaking systems and people. Leadership navigates change with fearless inquiry, futures thinking, imagination, and diverse relationships. That takes new skills, lenses, and dispositions and we are here for it.

We help school communities:

create new strategic plans
articulate or update their school community's definition of learning
revisit their mission, vision, and values
prepare for accreditation
build the capacity of their boards and communities to navigate more effective and inclusive pathways into the future
plan engaging professional development for their staff

Why not think about having us work with your staff, leadership team, or board on some BIG Questions worth pursuing?

We're working to design healthier, more just, more relevant, and more sustainable futures for school communities. Get all the details here.

Onward with hope,

Homa and Will

Big Questions Institute Newsletter

Norms for When the Conversations Get Serious